Ozhouse Clean – Case Study

Ozhouse Clean is based in Melbourne and offers professional, residential cleaning services, including regular home cleans, as well as spring cleans. The company was established in 2005 and is a family business established by James and Nancy Anderson. 

Ozhouse Clean’s key focus is providing quality services to all their customers. Key values are: 

• valuing and respecting all of our customers
• caring for the environment through our environmentally friendly services
• caring for our staff through a friendly working environment 
• promoting excellence and innovation in all of our business practices. 

The objectives are to:

• increase the number of clients by 20% 
• meet or exceed the expectations of customers 
• implement best practice in cleaning operations, including environmentally sustainable practices. 

James and Nancy are the Directors of the company and finance any business expansion themselves. Their daughters, Amanda and Sarah, are also Directors and manage the business for their parents who are not involved operationally. Amanda is the Operations Manager and Sarah is the Administration Manager. The company employs 15 casual cleaners (paid $25 per hour). 

The target customers are people in the greater Melbourne region who want a professional, trustworthy and immaculate cleaning service. The company currently has approximately 70 regular and loyal clients, based around Melbourne inner city.These clients require regular home cleaning, either weekly or once every two weeks for 4 to 6 hours (cost of $30 per hour). 

All ongoing cleaning supplies are currently purchased from Total Cleaning Supplies in Melbourne. However, OzHouse Clean does not currently offer environmentally friendly products as these products cannot be purchased from Total Cleaning Supplies. 

Additional Information required to complete the Project Portfolio

A recent survey of existing and potential clients shows a strong desire for an affordable eco-friendly and child-safe cleaning service. Industry information further shows that staff retention and training remains a challenge in the cleaning industry (this has resulted in very competitive hourly rates).

The Owners (James and Nancy) have met with and established a new supplier relationship with XtremeClene who supply eco-friendly and child safe cleaning products. Their products are typically 25% more expensive than regular cleaning products. New eco- friendly products include:

• Xtreme Window Clene
• Xtreme Floor Clene (option for carpet, tile and wooden floors)
• Xtreme bathroom Clene

To compensate to the additional cost, OzHouse Clean must charge $7.50 in addition to $30 per hour for a regular house clean.

James and Nancy, have asked Amanda (the Operations Manager) to:

• negotiate the price-increase for any services using eco-friendly products with customers.
• explain the new eco-friendly product approach to cleaning staff.

They have also asked her to keep all supplier information and cleaning product costs confidential when communicating with both staff and customers, but to make sure both groups understand the business’s objectives, new product option and the implications of the new product. 

At a recent executive team meeting (James, Nancy, Sarah and Amanda), everyone agreed that if requested, Amanda could negotiate:

• a wage increase of $0.50 per hour for all cleaning staff who have successfully demonstrated their competent knowledge and use of the new eco-friendly cleaning product range (Sarah would be arranging training at a later stage in the cleaner’s own unpaid time).
• a 5% discount for customers who’ve regularly used OzHouse clean for more than 1 year.

It was stressed at the meeting that Amanda should not negotiate unless customers/staff were obviously unhappy or if they requested it. Negotiation should not exceed the amounts agreed on at the executive team meeting and should promote customer/staff retention and satisfaction.

Meeting policy

OzHouse Clean convenes a range of meetings, including regular staff meetings, meetings to discuss specific projects or issues, management meetings and client meetings.  Only the executive team should arrange and chair meetings. No information should be shared with other staff unless agreed on at the executive team meeting.

All formal meetings must be properly convened in accordance with the following guidance. 

All intended meeting attendees should receive the following within two days of a meeting:

• the place, date and time of the meeting
• the business to be considered at the meeting

Appointments

• All client appointments must be confirmed with an email, even if they have been confirmed by both parties on the telephone.
• All employees are expected to attend all appointments with clients and with colleagues when they have been confirmed by both parties. If one party cannot attend due to a planning conflict, every effort must be made to negotiate a rescheduling for the meeting at a time that is beneficial to all.
• To ensure that appointment rescheduling has as little impact on the company as possible, appointments should be prioritised. The highest priority appointment should be carried out as planned, and the lower priority meeting rescheduled. 
• Meetings can only be carried out successfully when they are well attended.
• OzHouse Clean expects every employee to attend all meetings that they are invited to attend.
• If they cannot attend, they must send their apologies to the meeting’s chairperson.

Meeting rules

Meetings must be ran in a democratic way as follows:

• Make sure that everyone at the meeting gets a say. This can mean that some people who tend to dominate should be stopped and quieter people should be encouraged to say what they think;
• Limit the amount of time each staff member can have to speak on a matter
• Make sure that there are clear decisions on the matters being discussed, which everyone understands. 
• It is especially important that the person taking the minutes has the opportunity to write down what is agreed and it can sometimes be a good idea to stop and check that everyone is happy with what has been recorded as the resolution passed. (For further information, see Minutes).

Implementing these suggestions is properly the role of the chairperson.

Meeting agenda

• The purpose of a agenda is to inform the staff of when and where the meeting will be, as well as what will be discussed and done at the meeting. 
• An agenda and any reports for consideration should be sent out far enough in advance for them to be read and considered. 
• The minimum time that a notice may be sent before the meeting is 5 working days. This must be strictly adhered to. 
• Agendas must be sent by email to each individual staff member. 
• A typical agenda briefly sets out what matters will be covered and in what order. If staff members are notified of the business to be conducted at the meeting, then the meeting must be confined to dealing with those particular matters. The chairperson needs to ensure that any new agenda items raised during the meeting are put on the agenda for the next meeting and are not discussed at the current meeting. This allows staff members time to consider matters properly.

Chairperson

A meeting must have a chairperson to chair the proceedings. This will usually be the person who organizes the meeting and sends out the agenda. The chairperson is required to control the meeting procedures and has the task of:

• nominating or requesting a staff member to take meeting minutes (see following section)
• making sure proper notice is given and that there is an agenda, listing all items that need to be covered
• checking (and, usually, signing) the minutes of previous meetings if applicable
• keeping time (this is important, to ensure the meeting gets through its business in the allocated time)
• dealing with the order of business
• facilitating discussion
• keeping order
• ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to speak
• making sure that decisions are reached on issues that are discussed and that everyone understands what the decisions are
• declaring the meeting closed.

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